In the Forbidden Land/Chapter VI
- Highways and trade routes—The Darma route—The Dholi River—A rough track connecting two valleys—Glaciers—Three ranges and their peaks—Altitudes—Darma, Johar, and the Painkhanda Parganas—The highest peak in the British Empire—Natural boundaries.
THERE are two principal highways from Khela to Hundes: one by the valley of the Dholi or Darma River, the other along the Kali River and over the Lippu Pass.
The trade route viâ Darma is less frequented than the one by the Lippu, but it is nevertheless of considerable importance, inasmuch as a certain portion of the trade of South-west Tibet with India is carried on through the medium of the Darma Shokas. It consists mainly of borax, salt, wool, skins, cloth, and utensils, in exchange for which the Tibetans take silver, wheat, rice, satoo, ghur, lump candied sugar, pepper, beads of all kinds, and articles of Indian manufacture. For a mountain track, and considering the altitudes to which it rises, the Darma way is comparatively good and safe, notwithstanding that in following upwards the course of the Dholi River the narrow path in many places overhangs deep ravines and precipices. There are many Shoka villages and settlements on the banks of the stream, the most important ones being the Nyu, Sobala, Sela, Nagling (9520 feet), Bahling (10,230 feet), Sona and Tuktung (10,630 feet), Dansu and Yansu, where there is a bridge. On the north-east bank is Goa, facing Dakar, and farther up, at an elevation of 10,400 feet, the Lissar, a rapid tributary with muddy water.
The Dholi springs from a series of comparatively small glaciers north-east of a range forming a branch of the higher Himahlyan chain, and extending in a south-easterly direction as far as the point where the two streams meet. It receives, on its precipitous descent, many small snow-fed tributaries, those from the Katz snowfields and the Nui glacier being the most important. Its way lies in a tortuous channel amidst rocks and ravines, first tending towards the South-East, then due South, and last South-West down to the point where it is joined by the Lissar, coming from the North-West along a line almost parallel on the opposite watershed of the range.
Tyang, Sipu (11,400 feet), and Marcha (10,890 feet), are the three most important Shoka villages on the Lissar.
From Marcha there is a track connecting the valleys of the Lissar and Gori. You ascend the high mountain range west of the Lissar by skirting the northern edge of the Nipchung Kang glacier and keeping south of the Kharsa glacier, and, on a route that is unpopular on account of its constant difficulties and perils, you pass, as you descend in a westerly direction, the Tertcha glacier. South of the Shun Kalpa glacier you reach first Ralem and then Sumdu, which is situated on a tributary of the Gori River, itself a tributary of the Kali. The rugged, barren chain of mountains separating the Gori from the Lissar extends in a general direction from S.S.E. to N.N.E. up to the Ralfo glacier, and there turns in a curve North-West among a succession of perpetual snow-fields and glaciers. The glaciers to the North-East and East of the range outnumber those on the West, but there is one of importance called in its different sections the Kala Baland, the Shun Kalpa, and the Tertcha. There are, along the fifteen most northerly miles of the range, south of the point where it joins the Himahlyan chain, other glaciers of considerable size and importance, but I was not able to ascertain their names, excepting that of the Lissar seva, the most northern of all, forming the source of the Lissar. The inter-Lissar-Gori range is of considerable geographical importance, not only because it forms the boundary between the two parts of Bhot called Darma and Johar, but also because of the magnificent peaks reaching in the Bambadhura an elevation of 20,760 feet, and in a higher unnamed peak, South-East of it, 21,470 feet. There are also the two Kharsa peaks, the one North-West of the glacier bearing its name being 19,650 feet, the one South-West of it slightly over 20,900 feet, and S.S.W. one peak 21,360 feet, another 21,520 feet, and farther still, North of the Telkot glacier, the highest of all, 22,660 feet. In a South-East direction there are peaks 20,700 feet, 20,783 feet, and 21,114 feet high. At the point where the ridge turns South the elevations become lower, the two highest being 19,923 feet and 19,814 feet, the latter situated at the point where a smaller range branches off to the South-East, the principal range running South for the next eleven or twelve miles, with no very remarkable elevations. In the side range there are peaks of 18,280 feet, 17,062 feet, 14,960 feet, 14,960 feet respectively.
In Lat. 29° 59' 10" N. and Long. 80° 31' 45" E. the range again separates into two secondary ridges, one extending South-East, the other South-West, and in turn both these are again subdivided into minor hill ridges, along which no summits are found surpassing 13,000 feet, except the Basili, 13,244 feet.
The Bungadhura Mountain (9037 feet), in close proximity to Khela, terminates the South-Easterly division of the range, separating the Pargana of Darma from that of Askote. The actual boundary line, however, does not follow the higher mountain range as far as the Kali River, but swerves to the south along the ridge overlooking the valley of the River Relegar. These mountains are called the Mangthil.
There is west of the above ridge a second and even more important chain, running out parallel to it from the backbone of the Himahlyan great mountain system. This second ridge contains the highest mountain in the British Empire, Nanda Devi (25,660 feet) with its second peak (24,380 feet), also Trisul (23,406 feet), East Trisul (22,360 feet), and Nanda Kot (22,530 feet). This range and its ramifications divide the valleys of the Gori River (the Pargana of Johar) from the most Western portion of Bhot, the Painkhanda Pargana.
The well-known Milam and Pindari glaciers are one on the Eastern, the other on the South-West side of this range. The Milam highway to Tibet, frequented by the Johari traders, traverses over the Kungribingri Pass (18,300 feet), and the Uttadhura (17,590 feet) directly S.S.W. of it into Hundes.
The Pargana Painkhanda, a region equally Alpine, similarly covered with vast stretches of perpetual snow and extensive glaciers, is in the North-East corner of Garwhal, bordering on Tibet, and along the Dhauli River; intersecting it, another trade route finds its way into Western Tibet by the Niti Pass. Leaving the course of the Dhauli at Jelam (10,100 feet), this track proceeds almost due east, rising to an altitude of 16,600 feet on the Niti, in Lat. 30° 57' 59" N. and Long. 79° 55' 3" E., which is, from all accounts, a very easy pass, and quite free from snow during the summer months. The people of the Painkhanda Pargana use this pass as well as the other passes of Malla Shilanch and Tumzun, besides the Shorhoti, visited by H. R. Strachey some years ago, over which, however, only a small portion of the trade with Hundes is carried, for it is considered the most dangerous of the three. The cold and turbid waters of the Dhauli, swollen by dozens of equally foaming and muddy tributaries, become ultimately the sacred waters of the Ganges.
The three Alpine Parganas, viz., the Painkhanda, Johar, and Darma (Darma, Chaudas, and Bias) are inhabited by races closely allied and akin to those of Tibet proper. The region is collectively named Bhot, although that designation is more particularly applied by the natives of India to that portion of the country which includes Darma, Bias, and Chaudas, and which has for natural boundaries the Kali River to the South-East, separating it from Nepal and the great Himahlyan chain to the North-East, extending from the Lissar Peak in a general direction of about 115°.
A ramification leaving the main range at the Darma Pass stretches across from N.N.W. to S.S.E., separating the above-mentioned Darma Ganga from the Kuti River, along which I eventually travelled on my way to Tibet. The main elevations found on this ridge are 18,510 feet on the Darma Pass; north-east of the Rama glacier a peak 20,760 feet; the Gurma Mountain 20,320 feet; and others south of them as high as 20,380 feet, 20,330 feet, 20,260 feet. East of the latter summit is one 20,455 feet.